


Papi, I Am

by taempyrean



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Domestic, Angst, Child Hana "D.Va" Song, Dad Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Dad Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fluff and Angst, From Hana's POV, Gen, Guys It's Really Sad, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It's Only Partially Poetry Though, M/M, Of the Non-Incestual Sort, POV First Person, Poetry, Sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 05:09:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11029293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taempyrean/pseuds/taempyrean
Summary: Gabriel Reyes, father and husband, is gone. Hana copes.





	Papi, I Am

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone,
> 
> So the framework of this fic is a poem I originally wrote for and recited at a friend's music and poetry event. When it came time to write the poem, I was initially inspired by the concept of a father-daughter relationship between Jack and Hana, so I felt it was only fair that when I had finished I would return this poem to its roots and give this piece back to its fandom, so to speak. 
> 
> The poem is any part that's italicized. Sounds best when read aloud. Enjoy! 
> 
> (Musical inspirations: Ed Sheeran's "Supermarket Flowers," The Irrepressibles' "In This Shirt," and alt-J's "Breezeblocks" [Beshken Remix])

_Papi, I am sleepy._

_I spent all afternoon_

_Searching for socks_

_And chopsticks, keys with locks, clock’s hands_

_Things that belong together_

_I keep together, each in one hand—_

_You’re always the one on the left._

 

“Hana, darling, what are you doing?”

I turn from where I’m sitting crouched on the hardwood floor, hunched over the trinkets I worked so hard to collect. At my beckoning, Dad joins me on the ground. He sits quietly while I continue sorting.

I peek up at him often, between pairs of socks, a set of salt and pepper shakers. He’s aged so quickly: patches of silver now mingle with the golden strands on top of his head, the crow’s feet—lines that originated from smiles and laughter, the ones that used to make him look so young and bright—now weigh down the corners of his tired eyes, red and puffy from crying.

When I finish, I pick up the combination closest to me—a pair of black house slippers, worn with time and use, the ones you used to shuffle around the house in on chilly winter nights. I double-check their orientation before grabbing one in each hand—left in my left, right in my right—and holding them up to show Dad.

“This is me,” I say, raising my right hand and its slipper. Then I raise my left. “This is Papi.”

In turn, Dad presents me with one of what I call his Heartache Smiles. Tight-lipped, usually with tears accentuating his bright blue eyes—the ones you always used to come up with creative new ways to compliment, just so, you told me, you could see Dad blush—a perfectly bittersweet mix of a blissful past and a disheartening future.

Dad told me to never apologize for missing you, for loving you. So I don’t. Instead, I pick up the next two things—the pair of pink woolen mittens you made me for Christmas, the year Dad taught you how to knit. I hold them stacked one on top of the other, and, at my prompting, Dad wraps his hands around mine. I look up at Dad’s face. I look at the freckles you and I once tried to count, while he napped on the couch one Sunday afternoon, completely unawares.

“This is me and Dad,” I say to him, “This is Papi.” _  
_

 

_Papi, I am cold._

_I was out in the yard, after dinner_

_I was watching the stars_

_I was looking for you._

_I think you found me, down here, too,_

_Because I watched as the stars blinked out,_

_They left me, just as fast as you._

 

The first wash of rose-gold sunrise sweeps away any lingering starlight. I make sure I keep my eyes trained on those faint specks of light, the ones I watched all night long, twinkling like the strings of blinking Christmas lights you always used to help me put up—carrying me on your broad, strong shoulders so I could wrap the end of the lights around the very top of our freshly cut pine, year after year. I watch, focused and unblinking, until my eyes are burning and I’m sure the very last of them are gone. I wanted to see it, this time. I wanted to see you leaving me, because I didn’t, the first time, and also because... maybe, just maybe I thought that if you knew I was watching—if you could see me, seeing you—then maybe you wouldn’t go.

“Hana, oh thank goodness, Hana you’re here…” I close my eyes as I sit up from where I had been lying in the browning grass of our backyard. You wouldn’t have let the grass go brown.

Dad pulls me into his arms, and I welcome it. “I thought… I thought…” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but he doesn’t have to. I hear the three words, the ones that were sure to follow, every night when I walk by his—and your—bedroom. Sometimes shouted, sometimes sputtered through tears, but always the same three— _you left me._

“I’ve been looking all over for you. You shouldn’t be out here, look, you’re freezing in this flimsy little nightgown… My gosh, Hana, don’t tell me you slept out here? What were you thinking?”

I gaze up at the sky, now streaked with warm, pale hues. “I wanted to see him, Dad… I miss him.”

Dad follows my stare upwards and takes a long, stuttering breath through his nose. He grips me tighter.

“Me too, sweetheart. Me too.” _  
_

 

_Papi, I am sore._

_The skin on my hands have been rubbed raw,_

_My body aches under the weight_

_Of bursting black trash bags,_

_The pain in my throat_

_Calls out louder than my voice ever has,_

_Pleading Dad, please wake up, Dad, please get up,_

_You don’t want to be here, but you’re_

_Needed, here, please—_

_I don’t want to be left alone, here._

When you left us, Dad gathered me in his arms, looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Hana, we are all each other has left,” and he promised me that he was never going to leave. Since then, he’s found ways make this promise to me again and again—over crossed pinkies, through forced jokes about how the two of you always used to spar together to see who was the strongest and how now “I guess now we really know who the title of Strongest Daddy belongs to, huh?” Across pillows and through tears when neither of us could manage to sleep on our own, both terrified of succumbing to the hurt.

Because, even as young as I was, both of us already knew that if we succumbed, there would be no coming back.

“Dad,” I try once more, with the side of my face pressed against the mattress—the cool of tear-stained sheets working to balance the heat of my cheek, flushed from the effort of all the shouting, pleading, begging, sobbing.

He doesn’t respond. 

I get up from where I had been kneeling by his bedside, and I walk away. I refuse to look at his face—that empty, fading man is not my father. He can't be.

I head downstairs and I sort the mail. I finish drying the dishes and put them back in the cupboard. I throw away empty bottles. I think about the plate of carnitas _,_ untouched and cooling on the blanket covering Dad’s lap. This is the first time I’ve made them by myself. I did it just the way you taught me to.

When I return upstairs, the carnitas are cold. Dad is gone.

 

_Papi, I am sorry._

_But I need to go._

_You see, I know, right where I need to go,_

_I know right_ is _where I need to go but_

_Ever since you’ve left me all you’ve left me_

_With are crooked paths that point just_

_Left of whole, left of self. You left a hole,_

_An empty top shelf that selfishly_

_I cannot fill._

_You left me._

_Dad followed you, left_

_Me,_

_I am all I have, left._


End file.
